For the second time in less than a week, another major snowstorm hit southern Minnesota. A low pressure center was situated over northeast Kansas in the wee hours of the morning on March 16th. This low then tracked to the east to central Illinois by late afternoon. Light snow began falling across far western Minnesota and over the central parts of the Twin Cities in the evening hours of the 15th. The snow ended around noon on the 16th across the Twin Cities and slowly tapered off across southern Minnesota during the late afternoon.

During the snowstorm a Fed Ex cargo plane skidded off a runway at the Twin Cities International Airport. However, unlike the storm earlier in the week that had over 100 Metro Transit buses stuck, only about a dozen were affected on the 16th.

The storm from March 12-13 had roughly twice the water content as the storm from March 15-16. The reason for the fluffier and drier snow for the latter storm was that much of the moisture from this storm originated from the Pacific. The storm from earlier this week was able to tap some gulf moisture. At one observer's site in Maplewood 7.1 inches of fluff from this most recent storm melted down to .41 (17 to 1) compared to 10.4 inches of snow melting down to 1.21 (9 to 1) from the earlier storm.

One of the higher totals was 8.6 inches at the Twin Cities International Airport. It is interesting to note that the 12 inch snow depth reported at 6am March 16, 2006 at the Twin Cities International Airport hasn't happened at a official snow measuring site for the Twin Cities in two years. The last time was February 10, 2004 with a foot of snow on the ground at Chanhassen.

Listed below are National Weather Service Statements about this winter storm.